Little Rachel wants 900 pairs of shoes for her birthday...but not for herself

ATHENS, TX (KLTV) - Little Rachel Beets loves shoes, so it is not surprising that she wants shoes for her eighth birthday.

However, she is not asking for one or two pairs of shoes, she is asking for 900...and she wants to give them all away.

"Because other people can have some shoes too," 7-year-old Rachel said.

She is calling the project "Rachel's Happy Feet," something her mom was a little hesitant about taking on in the beginning.

However, Rachel was persistent and eventually mom started making phone calls.

"34 pair were donated, and she came in from school and just her face lit up like a Christmas tree. I should have jumped on it a little sooner," said Rachel's mom, Amanda Beets.

Rachel's birthday is January 31, and that is when all the shoes they collect will be donated to the Athens' Rainbow Room.

"When a child is removed from a home, usually they have nothing except for the clothes on their back. We work with Child Protective Services case workers so when they remove a child, they are able to bring them to the Rainbow Room and get new clothes or personal hygiene items," explained Rainbow Room board member and former president, Ann Hall.

The Rainbow Room is a non-profit organization that serves children from infants to 18-years-old.

On Wednesday, Rachel's family received a monetary donation to purchase shoes for their cause, bringing their donation count to 78 pairs of shoes.

Amanda knows this project is a constant reminder for her family of how blessed they truly are.

"I want my kids to know that greed is not an option at all in life. It's always better to give to people and have that willing, giving spirit, and that's what we are trying to teach them," she said.

The Beets family and the Rainbow Room hope others will be inspired by this 7-year-old's generosity, and together collect all 900 pairs of shoes.

Ask your vet about microchipping. ~ It could have saved Kuhio's life. And it cost Halo hers.Ask your vet about Polycystic kidney disease ~~ Rest in peace WillyLoved by Lisa

Power was cut to the B and Q lines in Brooklyn for more than an hour after a woman reported Thursday morning that her kittens were loose in the nation's largest subway system, transit officials said.

The furry felines, one black and the other white with gray stripes, were finally found on the tracks and rescued nearly seven hours later.

How they made their way to the tracks was a mystery. But they were seen running dangerously close to the subway's high-voltage third rail.

Power was suspended between several stops – about half the Q line and the B line's entire length in Brooklyn – on both the local and express tracks for 90 minutes, Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokeswoman Judie Glave said. The express line was later stopped another half-hour while workers kept searching.

But the skittish kittens disappeared again (and again) before being discovered Thursday evening under the third rail of an above-ground express track. Police officers removed the kittens in crates, Glave said.

Officials said workers and passengers in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood had been on the lookout for the kittens, and train operators were asked to proceed with caution. If they saw anything moving on the tracks, they were required to stop and notify the rail control center.

Though some passengers wanted to help by scouring the tracks, they were turned down by MTA workers citing safety concerns. The cats' owner did rush to a subway station with cat food, though, giving it to the transit workers who were dispatched to try and corral the elusive furballs.

While the effort on behalf of the kittens created delays for passengers, the Q operated a shuttle service between two of its normal Brooklyn stops, said transit officials, who couldn't immediately provide the cost of the extra service and rescue operation.

Ask your vet about microchipping. ~ It could have saved Kuhio's life. And it cost Halo hers.Ask your vet about Polycystic kidney disease ~~ Rest in peace WillyLoved by Lisa

On Friday morning around 11:00, two 8 week old kittens were seen running along the tracks in a Brooklyn subway station. Power was shut off and the station was closed while a police officer & a few transit workers grabbed a carrier and tried to catch them. No luck so the station reopened 2 hours later with a notice to all subway operators to go through the station slowly and watch for the kittens. The station was closed again later that afternoon. A few police officers and transit workers went to try another rescue. They saw the kittens run under a track so a transit worker, still wearing work gloves, reached under and got both kittens. Arthur and August were taken to a shelter where they're being cared for and checked over. They'll be transferred to another shelter for further care and socialization.

A very special THANK YOU to the police and the transit workers for caring enough to help these babies!

Walking along a side street near St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem on March 30 to visit his mother, Wilson Davis saw the shadowy figure of a man towering over a little girl. Ignoring her screams, the man had pulled her pants down and was straddling her. Another passerby just kept on walking. Not Davis. "I couldn't just walk by," he says. "That girl could have been killed."

Containing his anger ("I really wanted to hit the guy"), the amateur heavyweight boxer pinned the man, then yelled to a woman looking down from an apartment, "Call the cops!" The relieved 12-year-old hugged Davis, repeating "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Even the arresting officers embraced him.

A Virginia native whose family moved to The Bronx when he was 7, the imposing 6'4", 230-lb. courier spends most of his evenings at the gym, training for hours in hopes of winning a professional championship belt. As for his personal triumph last spring, Davis modestly shrugs and shakes his head. "I have a sister, I have a mom who lives in that area," he says. "It could have been one of them. Even so, I would have done it for anybody."

Ask your vet about microchipping. ~ It could have saved Kuhio's life. And it cost Halo hers.Ask your vet about Polycystic kidney disease ~~ Rest in peace WillyLoved by Lisa

Walking along a side street near St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem on March 30 to visit his mother, Wilson Davis saw the shadowy figure of a man towering over a little girl. Ignoring her screams, the man had pulled her pants down and was straddling her. Another passerby just kept on walking. Not Davis. "I couldn't just walk by," he says. "That girl could have been killed."

Containing his anger ("I really wanted to hit the guy"), the amateur heavyweight boxer pinned the man, then yelled to a woman looking down from an apartment, "Call the cops!" The relieved 12-year-old hugged Davis, repeating "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Even the arresting officers embraced him.

A Virginia native whose family moved to The Bronx when he was 7, the imposing 6'4", 230-lb. courier spends most of his evenings at the gym, training for hours in hopes of winning a professional championship belt. As for his personal triumph last spring, Davis modestly shrugs and shakes his head. "I have a sister, I have a mom who lives in that area," he says. "It could have been one of them. Even so, I would have done it for anybody."

How anyone could just keep walking is beyond me! I would have tried to intervene, even though I am not as big as he is or as well-trained!

Leaving Helen, Ga., on the night of Feb. 27, cabbie William "Bubba" Spivey drove over a hill and found himself face to face with an oncoming car on the wrong side of Interstate 20. Knowing a drunk driver had recently killed a father and his two children on that same stretch of road, Spivey decided on the spot to stop the oncoming car with his own. "If I stop dead still, I could block it," he said to himself, "and I believe I could survive the impact."

As others sped by, Spivey forced the other car off the road, then shouted to the driver, "Lady, you're on the wrong side of the interstate!" "No, I'm not," insisted Martha Bracken, 55, who tried to drive around him. But steering his car into hers, Spivey pushed her off the highway and jumped out to grab her keys.

Weeks later, Bracken pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and driving on the wrong side of the road. "I'm glad he stopped me," says the Crawfordville, Ga., resident. Spivey, a divorced father of two from Langley, S.C., felt he had no choice. "If I didn't try to stop her," he says, "and she killed somebody, I might as well have been driving that car."

Ask your vet about microchipping. ~ It could have saved Kuhio's life. And it cost Halo hers.Ask your vet about Polycystic kidney disease ~~ Rest in peace WillyLoved by Lisa

His parents had been taking him to the hospital after a seizure when little Jacob stopped breathing.

"You could tell that it wasn't going to be long and he wasn't going to recover from it," Wilson said.

However, when the two-year-old started crying, Wilson said the feeling of relief was indescribable. He said he didn't want Redden's parents to experience something he has dealt with himself…the loss of a child.

"Trying to hold back the tears. I had lost my own son a few years before that, 8 or 9 years before that. [He was] about the same age. And it was really scary," Wilson said.

Twenty years later, Redden said he's doing what he loves as an officer for the Campbell Police Department.

"After he saved my life I always figured if I can save another person's life then I've completed my goal," Redden said. "The only thing that pops in my mind when I think about that day is lucky that he was there, that he arrived so fast."

Wilson has watched Redden become a man and said he's proud of the career he's chosen. He made that clear when he spoke at Redden's graduation from the police academy.

"I actually told the story of Jacob and I then at the end I got to give him his diploma," Wilson said.

Redden and Wilson have kept in touch all these years and don't plan to stop any time soon.

Dallas Zoo to raise cheetah cubs with a Labrador puppy

(Reuters)
The Dallas Zoo will raise a pair of cheetah cubs with a Labrador retriever puppy, believing the dog will be a calming influence on the big cats as they grow to adulthood.

The 8-week-old male cheetahs Winspear and Kamau have arrived in Dallas, the zoo said, after a team of experts spent two weeks with them at their birthplace, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va.

They will be raised alongside an 8-week-old black Labrador retriever puppy named Amani, the zoo said in a statement on Thursday.

"Zoological experts have found that because dogs are naturally comfortable in public settings, Amani will provide a calming influence for the cubs, as well as another playmate as they grow to adulthood," the statement said.

Cheetahs are endangered with an estimated 10,000 in existence, the zoo said. In the wild, adult cheetahs are the world's fastest land animals reaching speeds of 60 miles per hour (97 kmph), according to National Geographic.

Now weighing about 8 and 6 pounds (3.6 kg and 2.7 kg), the cheetahs are expected to grow to about 3 feet (1 meter) tall at the shoulder and weigh up to 140 pounds (63 kg), the zoo said.

I've been Boo'd... right off the stage!

Aaahh, I have been defrosted! Thank you, Bonny and Asiel!
Brrrr, I've been Frosted! Thank you, Asiel and Pomtzu!

"That's the power of kittens (and puppies too, of course): They can reduce us to quivering masses of Jell-O in about two seconds flat and make us like it. Good thing they don't have opposable thumbs or they'd surely have taken over the world by now." -- Paul Lukas

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD) - A Sudan, Texas girl is being called a hero after rescuing a family on Buffalo Springs Lake over the weekend.

It's a scary story with a happy ending and the hero of the story is a familiar face on KCBD.

Natalee Olivarez says she was out on the lake with her family on Saturday evening when she noticed a nearby boat was overtaken by waves, causing the occupants to jump out in the middle of the deep lake.

"The first thing I saw was a man holding a baby and the baby was going under," said Olivarez, 16.

Natalee Olivarez is a 2013 CMN Miracle Kid and she proved to be a miracle child in more ways than one this year.

"When I realized they needed help, my reaction was to jump in the water and get to the first person that I could," Olivarez said.

Olivarez says that was the little baby. However, her job was far from over.

"I saw a woman holding a two-year-old and I helped get the two-year-old on our boat. Then I pulled a little boy about five away from getting squished between our two boats and treaded water until I could find the time to put him on our boat. Then I helped another little girl about 11," she said.

Natalee has been fighting a chronic pain disease for the past three years. But through treatments, she says the pain stopped a few months ago. And she believes she was there for a purpose.

"I believe that God put me in the right place at the right time and gave me the strength and courage to jump in the water to help pull the people out."

Cheryl Wyse already had two great teenage sons, but the yearning for a girl never left her. So, in the mid-1990s, she and husband Keith looked into adopting from China.

They never imagined their quest for a daughter would lead them to a new life as parents of four girls whose bones are so weak a mere cough or sneeze can break a rib.

"When I met them," says Cheryl, 53, of her two oldest, "they looked so fragile. They captured my heart. I just wanted to mother them."

But make no mistake. While the Wyse girls of Archbold, Ohio, have Osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, they share an indestructible spirit.

From Rachelle, 15, who has endured more than 75 bone breaks while maintaining a straight-A average (along with twin Rebekah), to 7-year-old Lydia and 4-year-old Esther, both abandoned as babies, the four overcome daunting obstacles in the most matter-of-fact manner.

Ask your vet about microchipping. ~ It could have saved Kuhio's life. And it cost Halo hers.Ask your vet about Polycystic kidney disease ~~ Rest in peace WillyLoved by Lisa